


My Dread

by choirboyharem



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, M/M, One Shot, Snuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 11:47:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20007796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choirboyharem/pseuds/choirboyharem
Summary: Jerome simply didn’t look human anymore—if he ever had been before. Of course, Bruce had been too naïve in thinking Jerome would have been able to accept or reform from any kind of help and have even somewhat of a change of heart. To feel remorse or regret.There was nothing in Jerome’s eyes now except for raw, shining hunger, rimmed with dark, rusted red.





	My Dread

**Author's Note:**

> a few gotham stans on twitter screencapped this fic from tumblr where i had originally written and posted it and they were extremely upset by it, so i decided i might as well post it on here too out of spite. this is set during late season four-ish if you need context.

Everything seemed to shift and blur, like a camera that couldn’t focus. Just dappled, swimming, dull color with its own heartbeat. It felt cold. The pain was intense enough that it seemed like everything Bruce was ever going to feel again, suffocated by the blinding, excruciating ache and the terrifyingly hollow, gaping, pulsating echo in his mangled entrails. 

With another thud of his irregular, shuddering heart, a final, concrete sense of dread suddenly set in, pushing past the denial his body was trying to keep intact. 

This _was_ all he was ever going to feel again, because he was going to die. 

This was beyond the panic and fear and anxiety from any other time Bruce had been kidnapped, tortured, toyed with, held as some form of hostage, or anything that had put his life in danger. This wasn’t him worrying about the outcome. This was him accepting defeat so his body could experience defeat and slip under, begging for the relief it needed. It was a simple fact that he was going to die and he would never get to see or reassure or help anyone he loved after this. 

Dimly, Bruce thought about Jim ordering him just earlier not to interfere with a case that belonged to the GCPD. He thought about Alfred’s face that he had seen hours ago, etched with concern and worry. 

If only they had known what was going to happen. If only Bruce had known. If only any of them hadn’t imagined the worst sort of fate Bruce could suffer from was a quick and easy death or maybe minimal torture before he was ultimately killed. 

But of course it couldn’t have been, because this was Jerome, and Jerome could have never just shot or stabbed Bruce. Not after the boardwalk circus. Even without an audience, Jerome still had to create a scene, something from a spectacular show that he could just imagine an audience seeing and eating up (to turn a phrase). Something sick and frightening. Something perverse. Bruce could have easily imagined something nauseating and strange and cruel. Something sexual and graphic. 

But not like this. Never like this. Nothing this intense and brutal and ruthless. It was completely insane and animalistic, even beyond the level of what Bruce had thought Jerome was capable of. 

And it was his reality. And it was the way he was going to die, with Bruce’s blood and entrails sliding down and dripping off Jerome’s chin, covering the inside of his mouth, covering his face. It masked the scars, but created an even more ghastly picture than Jerome’s zombification. Jerome simply didn’t look human anymore—if he ever had been before. Of course, Bruce had been too naïve in thinking Jerome would have been able to accept or reform from any kind of help and have even somewhat of a change of heart. To feel remorse or regret. 

There was nothing in Jerome’s eyes now except for raw, shining hunger, rimmed with dark, rusted red. 

It had started with a knife cutting his turtleneck open and oh, how Bruce wished it had just been assault. The knife had sunk into his stomach, dragging down and splitting him open, and it had made Bruce scream, but it was nothing compared to when Jerome’s gloved fingers sunk inside the wound and _pulled_.

“I bet you taste sweet inside and out, don’t you, Brucie?” Jerome had breathed, licking his lips, trembling as he straddled Bruce’s hips, reminding him all too clearly of the house of mirrors. 

“No,” Bruce had choked out, thick and hoarse, his body screaming with pain. “ _Please_.”

And then Jerome had grabbed and taken whatever he could after his fingers played in Bruce’s stomach, coming away with a scarlet, dripping fist of organ meat that soaked his glove and the end of the sleeve of his jacket. He’d sunk his teeth into it and it had burst, splattering onto his face, thick drops hitting Bruce down below. Bruce had screamed louder, burning and shredding his throat with the noise as he shuddered and writhed, seeing nothing but pictures in shades of red. 

Bruce was torn apart, his bones displayed and picked clean little by little. Nothing could have felt worse. He wished his brain had been overloaded and he would’ve been killed from shock, but he wasn’t that lucky. He was destroyed, ruined through and through, wheezing and wondering when darkness would take him under. 

When Jerome spoke again, speaking English instead of just moaning around his hands and the gore in his mouth, it took too long to process it as Bruce’s brain became more and more fuzzy with confusion and fatigue, freezing up. 

Bruce couldn’t do more than mouth anything, unable to speak. He tried to say “What?”, wondering what Jerome could possibly have to say to him now, other than just mocking him as he lay in a puddle of his own shredded, chewed-and-spat stomach. 

Jerome repeated himself, clutching at more of Bruce, slippery red, pink, purple, crushed guts sliding between his fingers. “You look like you’re close,” he murmured, something that sounded like affection tainting his voice. Bruce couldn’t even begin to comprehend it, especially not now. “Very, very close. Almost like you’re about to snuff it, darling. And we can’t have that…” He dropped the knife that he’d been clutching in his other hand, using it to part Bruce’s slacked mouth. “… without you tasting a little bit of what true, fine, purebred, rich boy meat tastes like. You’ll taste how _indulgent_ you are.”

Jerome pressed his thumb against Bruce’s teeth, pushing his jaw down before he shoved the pulp into Bruce’s mouth. Even though none of Bruce’s senses were really quite working right now, he could still taste it. He could taste it hitting the back of his throat. It was heavy and tasted like nothing but clotted, heady blood and other wet things, sour and sick and sweet and wrong. He coughed and it made blinding light flash behind his eyes, not letting him be forgiven from the pain. 

“Swallow,” Jerome hissed, holding his hand over Bruce’s mouth. “Be a good boy. Do one last thing for me, Bruce, and swallow.”

And Bruce did try. He did try to do as Jerome asked, but before he could work his throat, his thoughts and his world dimmed and finally, gloriously faded to black, dragging him under. The agony fell away and he was finally relieved from the task of breathing. His hand had been curled in Jerome’s jacket, wordlessly, fruitlessly begging for him to stop, pulling on him, because Jerome was the only thing that could have given him mercy even while any semblance of it had been stripped away. 

The last thing he felt was Jerome’s slick, wet, tainted lips on his forehead, bidding him farewell, tenderness in the moment even as evidence of the slaughter continued to fall from creases in his face onto Bruce. 


End file.
